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| |  Researchers Find High Copper Content In Betel Nuts LONDON -- May 16, 1997 -- In a Research Letter in this week's issue of The Lancet, Dr Chetan Trivedy and colleagues from King's College School of Medicine and Dentistry, London, UK, report finding high concentrations of copper in betel nuts, which may explain why people who chew betel nuts are at risk of getting cancer of the mouth. Chewing betel nut (Areca catechu) products is a common practice in oriental countries and is known to be associated with precancerous changes in the lining of the mouth oral submucous fibrosis. The amount of copper found in betel-nut preparations was surprisingly high, about 10 times higher than the amount found in nuts such as peanuts (205-535 nmol/g compared with 22-173 nmol/g). The researchers also tested the saliva of people when they chewed a commercial betel-nut preparation, Pan Parang, and estimated that regular chewers would have up to 5mg of copper released into their mouths each day, five times as much as would be taken in daily in food. Further research is being done to find out whether regular users of betel-nut preparations have more copper in their bodies. Dr Trivedy and colleagues conclude "the role of copper from areca products in the pathogenesis or oral submucous fibrosis merits further investigation, particularly since it is thought to be involved in other fibrotic diseases such as scleroderma and liver fibrosis."
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